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Higher Education Statistics Agency

Helping convert a people-based analytics service into an online data platform

The Higher Education Statistics Company (HESA) wanted to create a online tool for its data analysis service. We helped them validate the proposition as an addition to its people-based analytics service, then design and test a prototype tool with real users across multiple sprints.

The challenge

HESA asked us to help it convert a people-based statistics service to a digital data hub.

This presented us with a number of questions we needed to answer around the proposition of establishing the service online, how it should look and whether it would work with its clients’ current ways of using and paying for data analysis services.

What we did

This project required a rapid research and design approach during two intensive one week sprints to answer a number of unique questions.

Firstly, we helped the HESA team design a low fidelity prototype for a digital service to replace or supplement human analysts.

Internal HESA analysts and customers were then recruited to participate in 1-to-1 user research sessions to test the prototype. The insights gained from this research was used to inform improvements to the prototype during the sprints, and prioritise further functional development.

The outcome

We helped HESA understand how its customers felt about the service being transformed into a digital platform, and the pros and cons of changing or keeping the people-based service.

Our user research established valid data on what areas of the prototype needed further development and helped prioritise which functions would require mini sprints for more depth and detail.